Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We frequently hear of the need for those who have more to pay more on the basis of the 1% principle. It is important to be clear that we live in a country in which the top 1% of taxpayers pay just under one quarter of all of the income tax and USC collected. That is a progressive tax code in operation. That is a tax code under which the more income one has, the more tax one pays. In making his point, Deputy Boyd Barrett referenced a report by the Central Bank. It is one thing to produce the figures but it is an entirely different matter to look at how a tax can be effectively implemented. Even with that point in mind, let us look at what the constituents of that wealth could be that are captured in the report to which Deputy Boyd Barrett referred. If that wealth is captured in the value of a home, the individual pays the local property tax. If it is captured in the value of savings and those savings earn interest, the individual pays DIRT tax. If it is captured in a financial instrument of some kind, when that financial instrument is sold or is the subject of a transaction, the individual pays tax at that point. If it is wealth that is inherited from one generation to another, the individual pays tax at that point as well.

One of the reasons I oppose the policy that is being put forward, as I said in my opening statement, is that in effect we have taxes in place already that perform some of the role of the tax being proposed by Deputies Boyd Barrett and Mairéad Farrell. If there is a need for a report and further analysis of the matter, I am sure it is something the Parliamentary Budget Office could look at on behalf of this committee. This committee has the resources that it needs and it makes good use of same and I am sure it could look at commissioning a report in this area. Given that Ireland has just made a decision to enter into an OECD agreement that commits us to a minimum effective tax rate, I am not going to include signals in our Finance Bill that indicate that very big changes are coming on the taxation of people and their income which would undermine the competitiveness of our country and undermine our ability to attract and keep wealth and jobs in Ireland.